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If the link is to an existing page in the same project, going to the redirect (by means of a link, the URL, or the Go button) results in the new page, just like following the link, except that the browser shows the original URL, and the new page shows a redirection message below the title.

For example, if somebody follows a link to redirection, then they will end up at this page instead, and the top of the page will look like:

If the link is to a non-existing page in the same project, one simply arrives at the redirect page.

If the link is to a page in another project, going to the redirect results in following the link, regardless of existence (a project does not retrieve information about existence of pages on another project, but just sends through). The browser shows the new URL.

Conveniently linking indirectly to a page, without the need for a piped link. For this purpose, making the stem (the common first part) of a collection of strongly related terms a redirect reduces the need for having many redirects. E.g. dwarf can be used for dwarf, dwarves, dwarven. Note that having the other redirects anyway is even better; also a piped link is in some respects even better than relying on a redirect, see Comparison with piped link.

Due to redirects, after renamings and merges, old URLs in links, bookmarks, search engines, etc., still lead to the appropriate page.

When a page is renamed/moved with the Renaming (moving) a page function, a redirect is automatically created from the old to the new name, and also one for the corresponding talk page.

If the new page name is occupied by a redirect with only one edit in its history, it is replaced by the page being moved. If the redirect has more than one history entry, then it must either be deleted by an administrator or moved to another name. This move will leave behind a new redirect with no edit history, which can then be replaced by the desired page move. It might be desirable to delete the moved redirect.

If you're creating a new redirect, start a new page, write #REDIRECT [[pagename]] (or #redirect[[pagename]]) at the top of the page, where pagename is the name of the target page. Here is an example. If you're replacing an existing page with a redirect, for example after merging a duplicate page, go to the page, edit it, and replace the existing text with #REDIRECT [[pagename]].

Extra text after the #REDIRECT command and link, on the same line, can serve as explanatory text. It is only shown when viewing the redirect page itself.

The page will not redirect if there is anything on the page before the redirect. Also, there must be no spaces between the # and the REDIRECT. Consider copying the #REDIRECT [[pagename]] text into the edit summary so that people know that you have created a redirect.

After you create a redirect, you get sent to a page with the string "&redirects=no" in the URL. Thus the just created redirect page is shown, not the page to which it redirects. To see your redirect working, use your address bar to delete that part of the URL. Alternatively, create a link on another page to your redirect, and then follow that link.

When creating new redirects, bear in mind that creating too many redirects can clutter up the search results page, which can hinder users. Also, don't spend too much time creating redirects - often it's more important to spend time improving the quality of the target page. A piped link is another way to make a link to a page with a name which does not occur in the first page.

Then click Edit this page. You can then either change the target of the redirect, or replace the redirect with a brand new page.

Another way to do the same thing: Go to the target page, and click "What links here". This will show you all the back-links from that page, including redirects. To change a redirect, click on it, and then click on Edit this page as above.

It is also possible to set up redirects between MediaWiki wikis, such as between WoWWiki and Wikipedia. Simply append the language code and the page name to the word "Wikipedia" (or other WikiMedia projects: Wikibooks, Wikitext?, Wikiquote?, Wikisource?, ...?) with colons. To link to the Wikipedia article for dog from an article in WoWWiki, one would use [[Wikipedia:en:dog]]. For example Wikipedia:en:dog. As a redirect: #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:en:dog]]

However, compared with redirects within a MediaWiki wiki there are restrictions and drawbacks:

The message "Redirected from ..." is not shown.

Editing the redirect page is cumbersome, one has to use
http://{project domain name}/w/wiki.phtml?title=...&redirect=no

"What links here" does not work across wiki's; this applies also to redirects, so one can not see which page(s) redirect(s) to a given page.

Being led to an other wiki without explicit request may be confusing.

In order to change an inter-wiki redirect (perhaps restoring previous content), manually go to a URL like
http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?title=My_Title&redirect=no , but replace "my_title" with the title of the page in question. You can then view page history, edit the page, etc, in the normal fashion. This is tedious, but it is the only way of doing this, currently.

An image can link to a page of choice instead of the image description page by putting a redirect as "image description". The actual image description then has to be put on the Talk page.

For clarity it may be useful to add a text near the image, which can be made a link to the same page. Thus clicking on the text and on the image has the same effect.

However, when arriving at the target page, not only is the message (Redirected from Image:xxxxx.xxx) displayed, but so is the image itself. This may not be the effect sought. As an alternative navigable images provides image anchored navigation in projects that allow embedding images in external link style.

If the main function of the image is just being a symbol for the link, then, before uploading, give it a name describing that function rather than describing the image itself.

Creating redirects is helpful when there is more than one possible title for a page, or many different ways a user might search for a topic. Creating redirects for potential titles helps your users find the existing page, and also helps to prevent the accidental creation of duplicate articles.

Redirects are also automatically created when a page is moved, allowing links and users who used the old title to automatically be brought to the new title.

An example

If you want that page title to be "Anakin Skywalker", then "Darth Vader" should be a redirect. The Darth Vader page would contain this:

#redirect [[Anakin Skywalker]]

How do I change a redirect?

It is possible to change the Darth Vader redirect by editing it. First, try visiting the Darth Vader page, which redirects to the Anakin Skywalker page. Then, below the title of the page, you will see the text:

Click this "Darth Vader" link to go back to the redirect page at Darth Vader. You can then click "edit" to alter the Darth Vader page as usual (making the redirect link point somewhere else, or replacing it with a new article) like any other page.

What is a "double redirect"?

A double redirect is a redirect page that points to another redirect page. For example, suppose that "Vader" points to "Darth Vader" which points to "Anakin Skywalker". Then visits to the "Vader" page will be forwarded only once and stop at the "Darth Vader" redirect.

To fix this, click the (Redirected from...) link on the "Darth Vader" redirect page, to go back to the "Vader" redirect. Edit Vader's redirect to point to "Anakin Skywalker".